Samuel Kanu Uche, the prelate of the Nigerian Methodist Church, was abducted by armed militants while traveling on a highway on Sunday, May 29. The attack took place in the southeastern state of Abia.

Reverend Dennis Mark, the Methodist Bishop of Owerri, and the prelate’s chaplain were also kidnapped with Uche on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway. Their captors were militants affiliated with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group in Nigeria.

According to a police spokesman, the priests were released after a day. Police provided no further details regarding the attack.

Emma Powerful, a spokeswoman for IPOB, condemned the kidnappings and called for the release of the priests. In her statement, she described the abductions as “sacrilegious.”

She said, “We are, therefore, calling on the kidnappers to unconditionally release the respected men of God and his colleagues kidnapped alongside him, and we wonder what the abductors stand to achieve in kidnapping a prelate and his colleagues, who are neither politicians nor money bags.”

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) commented on the kidnappings while charging Nigerian President Buhari to “stop the incessant abduction of clerics and other innocent Nigerians.”

They added, “If a great servant of God of Uche’s caliber could be kidnapped like a three-year-old baby on a major road without any resistance from the police, it speaks volumes of what our security architecture has become.”